NASA's Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will beam the Super Bowl XLVII showdown between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens live to the International Space Station so its astronaut crew can watch the big game along with every other football fan on Earth.

The space station is currently home to two American astronauts (commander Kevin Ford and flight engineer Tom Marshburn), Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and Russian cosmonauts Evgeny Tarelkin, Oleg Novitskiy and Roman Romanenko. Together they make up the station's Expedition 34 team. [Astronaut's Amazing Photos of Earth from Space]

Whether the space station crew will throw a traditional Super Bowl party, hold a zero-gravity football game, or just float around with the game on in the background is unknown. But the International Space Station, is just about the same size (tip to tip) as the football field the 49ers and Ravens will play on in New Orleans during Sunday's game.

Just after the Super Bowl, the AXE personal care products company is expected to unveil the first winner of its AXE Apollo Space Academy contest to launch 22 people on private trips to space. The contest was announced in January, with AXE teaming up with XCOR Aerospace builder of the private suborbital space plane Lynx and cosmic tourism firm Space Expedition Curacao to offer the trips.

The other 21 winners from the AXE Apollo Space Academy are slated to be selected after a final competition  the AXE Global Space Camp  to be held in Orlando, Fla. The winners will then be launched into space, one at a time, once XCOR's Lynx space plane begins operational flights with Space Expedition Curacao, contest organizers said.

Just after the Super Bowl, the AXE personal care products company is expected to unveil the first winner of its AXE Apollo Space Academy contest to launch 22 people on private trips to space. The contest was announced in January, with AXE teaming up with XCOR Aerospace -- builder of the private suborbital space plane Lynx -- and cosmic tourism firm Space Expedition Curacao to offer the trips. The other 21 winners from the AXE Apollo Space Academy are slated to be selected after a final competition -- the AXE Global Space Camp -- to be held in Orlando, Fla. The winners will then be launched into space, one at a time, once XCOR's Lynx space plane begins operational flights with Space Expedition Curacao, contest organizers said.

It's odd that they are launching from Curacao instead of Cologne...

3
posted on 02/03/2013 9:34:19 AM PST
by SunkenCiv
(Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)

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